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Recipe: The Ultimate Vegan Christmas Pudding

November 17, 2017 By Kate Ford 22 Comments

Ultimate Vegan Christmas Pudding

What better way to round off a gut-bustingly enormous (vegan) roast dinner with all the trimmings, than a huge slice of boozy steamed fruit pudding with lashings of custard or and brandy ‘butter’?  Why do we do it?!  Well, because it’s a great British tradition of course, and Christmas dinner just wouldn’t be the same without it.

‘Stir Up Sunday’ is fast approaching, and if this is your first vegan Christmas and you thought you might miss out on all the fun – no need! This vegan pudding is every bit as rich, moist and Christmassy as the non-vegan original version – I bet you won’t be able to tell the difference.

Ultimate #Vegan Christmas Pudding

Here’s a quick video showing all my vegan Christmas recipes here on The Veg Space – and you can browse them all by clicking here too.

For my American readers who are probably totally baffled by now, this pudding is a very traditional part of a British Christmas meal.  Stir Up Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent, and the day on which these puddings are made, with each family member taking a turn to stir the mixture whilst making a wish for the year ahead.  What will yours be?!

And the traditions continue on the big day itself… the pudding should be brought to the table in flames, which is done by pouring over warmed brandy, then setting a match to it.  (Please be careful!!).

A silver coin is traditionally baked into the pudding, and whoever finds it will have good luck for the following year.  In my family, to avoid arguments, we wrap up lots of coins in silver foil (health and safety, you know), and poke them in to the pudding at the last minute.  These are usually 1p or 2p coins, perhaps the occasional 50p, (except for my lovely Uncle Ron who would always come to Christmas Dinner with a crisp £50 note tucked up his sleeve, then pretend to ‘find’ it in his Christmas pudding every single year to the astonishment of us little ones, until we cottoned on many years later!).

Ultimate #Vegan Christmas Pudding

Christmas Pudding is actually very easy to vegan-ise, as the fat content is suet, and vegetable suet is almost always vegan anyway.  As a sponge that’s steamed for hours on end, the texture is moist and fairly dense, so replacing the egg is a doddle – you could probably just leave it out of any standard recipe, but I’ve just added a bit of soya yoghurt here to be on the safe side.  My starting point for this recipe was Felicity Cloake’s ‘Perfect Christmas Pudding‘ for the Guardian, but I’ve vegan-ised it and fiddled about with the quantities a little to my taste.

Serve with vegan custard, (the ready-made soya stuff it totally delicious, or make your own with nut milk and custard powder), or brandy ‘butter’, made with dairy-free block margarine.  What do you serve with yours?

5 from 4 votes
Ultimate Vegan Christmas Pudding
Print
Ultimate Vegan Christmas Pudding
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
4 hrs
Total Time
4 hrs 20 mins
 
Course: Dessert
Servings: 6 people
Author: Kate Ford | The Veg Space
Ingredients
For a 1.1 litre / 2 pint pudding basin
  • 350 g mixed fruit (I used a 'luxury' version with cherries and mixed peel included in it)
  • 140 ml sherry (check it is vegan)
  • 120 g soft light brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 60 g self-raising flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • pinch salt
  • 60 g fresh breadcrumbs
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • zest of 1 orange
  • 120 g vegetable suet
  • 40 g walnuts, roughly chopped
  • 60 ml soya milk
  • 1 1/2 tbsp soya yoghurt (plain)
  • 1 tbsp black treacle
  • 120 ml stout (check it is vegan)
Instructions
  1. Soak the fruit in the sherry overnight.

  2. Mix the sugar, spice, flour, baking powder, salt, breadcrumbs, zest, suet and nuts in a large bowl.

  3. In a jug, whisk together the soya milk, soya yoghurt, black treacle and stout.  Pour this into the dry ingredients and mix well until fully combined.

  4. Grease a 1.1 litre (2 pint) pudding bowl generously, and tip in the pudding mixture - it should come about three quarters of the way up the basin - don't overfill it or this will cause problems later on!  Cut out a circle of baking parchment or greaseproof paper and place this over the pudding mixture.

  5. Either put the lid on your pudding basin, or else wrap it in two layers of foil, pleating it at the top to allow for expansion and steam.  Seal it tightly so that water can't get in to your pudding during steaming.  Steam the pudding for 4 hours - either in a steamer, or place a jam jar lid in the bottom of a saucepan, then fill the saucepan with water until it is two thirds up the side of the pudding basin.  Keep checking water levels as it cooks, you don't want it to boil dry.

  6. When the pudding is cooked, leave it to cool, then wrap tightly in foil and store in a cool place until Christmas.  For a boozy pudding, feed it regularly with brandy or sherry.

To serve:
  1. Steam for 1.5 hours, as described above.

  2. To serve alight, warm 3-4 tbsp brandy in a small jug the microwave.  Just before bringing to the table, pour the brandy over the pudding then light with a match.

Ultimate #Vegan Christmas Pudding

Don’t forget to pin the recipe for later, or to share with friends → → → → →

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Vegan in 15 Cover | Kate FordThere are plenty of quick and easy recipes in my new book, ‘Vegan in 15‘*. Hop over to Amazon for a look.  Thanks for your support!

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CookBlogShare

 

I’m linking this recipe with CookBlogShare hosted this week by Hijacked by Twins

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Filed Under: Recipes, Vegan Baking Tagged With: baking, christmas, fruit, pudding, vegan, Vegetarian

About Kate Ford

Hi, I'm Kate. The Veg Space is a food blog packed with easy vegan comfort food recipes. Click on About Me to find out more or Recipes to get cooking!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jennifer Bliss says

    November 17, 2017 at 9:37 pm

    That looks interesting! I haven’t had much (or any) Christmas Pudding in my life. Vegan or Non-Vegan. But I’m intrigued!

    Reply
  2. Midge @ Peachicks' Bakery says

    November 18, 2017 at 11:34 am

    Whoop a recipe I can finally make Peachick safe christmas pudding from! Love the idea of making your own mincemeat – with an orange allergy on top of dairy & eggs christmas can be a little tricky!!

    Reply
  3. Nadia says

    November 19, 2017 at 6:47 pm

    It looks delicious and so moist! Is it too early for me to want a slice right now? 😀 I love that you add lots of coins to avoid arguments haha! 😀

    Reply
  4. Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine says

    November 20, 2017 at 11:37 am

    Well isn’t that just a wonderful Christmas classic!

    Reply
  5. Kirsty Hijacked By Twins says

    November 20, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    I adore Christmas pudding and this one looks delicious! Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x

    Reply
  6. Sharon says

    November 20, 2017 at 10:46 pm

    That was so funny reading about your Uncle Ron. What a prankster ????
    I adore Christmas pudding but I’ve never actually made one myself yet. I bet it tastes nicer than the shop-bought ones. I’ll pin your delicious recipe and maybe next year I’ll be organised enough to make one.
    I still haven’t got round to baking my Christmas cake yet!! Hopefully that’ll be done at some point this week…. and I’m planning to use your vegan recipe ❤️ I’m really excited to try it out!

    Reply
  7. Kat (The Baking Explorer) says

    November 20, 2017 at 11:10 pm

    That looks fantastic! So moist and packed with fruit – yummy

    Reply
    • thevegspace says

      November 21, 2017 at 12:18 pm

      Thanks Kat! Yes it is such a moist pudding – love it!

      Reply
  8. Philip May says

    December 9, 2017 at 1:55 pm

    Hello I am looking to make a Christmas pudding this year. I read your recipe above and it sounds yummy ????

    The question I have is how do you steam the pudding. I can not see where it tells me how to do the steaming.

    Thank you in advance.

    Cheerio

    Reply
    • thevegspace says

      December 11, 2017 at 6:32 pm

      Hi Philip, you can either use an electric steamer, or half-fill a saucepan with water and put the pudding in (well wrapped in foil) with the lid on, and keep topping it up with water (making sure it doesn’t come past the top of the pudding). If you search google or youtube there will be lots of step-by-step instructions to follow. Kate x

      Reply
      • Claire says

        December 22, 2018 at 12:11 pm

        Slow cookers work too 🤪

        Reply
  9. Mike says

    December 25, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    Help! I have just done this recipe and it’s gone great. Have cooked it for 4 hours and slid a knif in which came out sticky but not wet. Cooked for another hour and it’s still sticky but getting less so. Is it done? Should it be sticky? Help it’s on the hob right now! 🙂
    Mike

    Reply
    • thevegspace says

      December 29, 2017 at 11:25 am

      Hi Mike, Sorry not to have responded to this on Christmas Day – hope it turned out well! Kate x

      Reply
  10. Lottie says

    November 9, 2018 at 4:07 pm

    Sounds great..
    A 2 pint basin means a (glass) bowl that can hold two pints of water , right? I
    And can I use something other than stout? Can’t bear the stuff and it’s hard to get single bottles where I live.
    And how long will this store for, aka when can make it? I
    Thanks.

    Reply
    • Kate Ford says

      November 14, 2018 at 6:33 am

      Hi Lottie, you will need a pudding basin – either ceramic or plastic, that can be steamed for hours, I wouldn’t use glass. It stores for months so make it any time, you will need to steam it to cook it, and then steam it again on Christmas morning before serving. Enjoy!

      Reply
  11. Nicola says

    January 2, 2019 at 3:45 pm

    Made this only a few days out from Christmas and it came out great. Really popular pudding with a non-vegan commenting it’s better than a ‘normal’ pudding. Thanks for a great recipe. Will be making this each year now. Anywhere to share pics?

    Reply
    • Kate Ford says

      January 2, 2019 at 9:05 pm

      Fantastic! So glad to hear it. Love seeing pics on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter – @thevegspace on all three. Kx

      Reply

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Hi, I'm Kate. The Veg Space is a food blog packed with easy vegan comfort food recipes. Click on About Me to find out more or Recipes to get cooking! Read More…

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Hi, I'm Kate. The Veg Space is a food blog packed with easy vegan comfort food recipes. Click on About Me to find out more or Recipes to get cooking!

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